Wendlandish
Wendlandish , natively Vinnurlænska ''or ''lyngra Vinnurlænska, is a Romance language spoken in an alternative history version of Earth, in the area of real-world Pomerania. The only member of the Northern Romance branch, Wendlandish has, due to relative and long isolation from the rest of the Romance-speaking world, followed its own path of evolution and has absorbed lots of words, grammatical features, and influence on phonology, from its neighboring languages: most prominently Old Norse, but also Proto-Slavic, Baltic languages, Low German and, more recently, Standard High German and Polish. Classification and Dialects Phonology Consonants /g/ is not a native phoneme of Wendlandish, but some people use it in unassimilated loanwords which originally had it. For example granís "border" is a totally assimilated loanword (from Polish granica) and is pronounced ɣraˈniːs, while gató ''"cake (in specific contexts)" (from French ''gâteau) isn't and may be pronounced gaˈtoː, but more commonly is ɣaˈtoː. Similarly, /v/ is used by some speakers instead of /ʋ/ (and its coda allophone ʊ̯) in words of Polish origin, even in "assimilated" loanwords, like javnosj ''"public" ˈjɑːvnɔʃ (from ''jawność) or tjervon ''"red" tʃɛrˈvoːn (from ''czerwony). This does not happen, anyway, with loanwords from any other source. In standard Wendlandish, v otherwise only appears as an allophone of /ʋ/ after /k/ — even if this too only happens in borrowings, usually learned Latin words like kvæstsura "public office" kvæsˈtsuːra (reborrowing from quaestūra), kvadrats ''"square" kvaˈdrats (reb. < ''quadrātum), or inkvizitjona ''"research group; scientific research; Inquisition" iŋkviziˈtʃoːna (reb. < ''inquīsītiōnem); but also from other sources, including Polish /w/, like zakvat ''"factory" ˈzɑːkvat, (< ''zakład). Note that foreign /gv/ is usually borrowed as /kv/ too, or /ɣ/ before /u/ or /o/ (e.g. the two assimilated loanwords kvjast ''"star" ˈkvjast < Pol. ''gwiazda; and gosj ''"nail" ˈɣoːʃ < Pol. ''gwóźdź). Phonemic /v/ is however much more common than phonemic /g/, even if used by a minority of speakers. Vowels Phonotactics Writing System The digraphs aj, au, ej, ou, 'and 'æj represent the diphthongs /aɪ̯ aʊ̯ eɪ̯ ɔʊ̯ ɛɪ̯/ but are not treated as separate letters, unlike digraphs for consonants. ng 'does not have an upper-case version as it does not appear at the beginning of words. Loanwords are usually adapted without exceptions, like e.g. Polish ''zakład ''> ''zakvat ''"factory", or German ''Übermensch > ybermensj. Foreign surnames from languages written in the Latin alphabet are usually however kept the same (except for a few personalities whose names are completely adapted, like Kristsafir Kolum ''(Christopher Columbus) or ''Jøna ið Ark ''(Joan of Arc)); names from other languages were formerly romanized into Wendlandish from their pronunciation (e.g. ''Лермонтов ''> ''Ljermantaf), nowadays pure transliterations are preferred (e.g. Горбачёв > Gorbatjov, pronounced either gɔɐ̯baˈtʃɔʊ̯ or ˈɣɔɐ̯batʃɔʊ̯). Grammar Nouns Verbs Wendlandish verbs inherit the four conjugations of Latin, but has categorized them in different classes as sound changes greatly modified the original verbs. The four main verb classes are: # '''-æjr verbs, that is, descendants of the Latin first conjugation, like mæjr ''"to love" (< amāre) or ''ømlæjr ''"to walk" (< ambulāre); # '-ajr verbs', descendants of the Latin second conjugation, like ''viðajr ''"to see" (< vidēre) or ''sfajr ''"to be aware" (< sapēre); # '-ir verbs', descendants of the Latin third and fourth conjugations - like ''hrajðir ''"to believe" (< crēdere), ''hnovskir ''"to know" (< gnōscere), or ''dirmir ''"to sleep" (< dormīre), ''inørnir ''"to intervene" (< intervenīre). Those which descend from the third conjugation are called the '-øymur group as their first person plural present indicative ends like that (e.g. hriðøymur ''"we believe"), while those which descend from the fourth one are the '-ymur 'group (e.g. ''dirmymur ''"we sleep"). # '-ær/-er verbs, which do not descend from Latin but are instead made by a generalization of the pre-Wendlandish ''-er infinitive suffix added to other roots, like ''milær ''"to smile" (< Old Norse smíla). This is the only currently productive conjugation - e.g. colloquial ''daunloder ''"to download", ''sælfijer "to take a selfie". Note that verbs from the first three conjugation usually have four principal parts, for infinitive, present, preterite, and participle. Present indicative Irregular verbs To say (ditsir) and to talk (prilufir) Two common irregular verbs are 'ditsir '(to say) and 'prilufir '(to talk). Both of them are suppletive: '''ditsir '''mostly comes from Latin dīcere, but the present and the past participle are from the originally deponent defective fārī (completed by analogy), and the present participle ''jajnts ''is from aiēns, the present participle of āiō. '''Prilufir '''mostly comes from forms of prōloquī, through an analogically rebuilt active paradigm *prōloquere, but the participles are the ones of the unprefixed verb — ''lusjens ''and ''lukuts ''from loquēns and locūtus respectively. '''Ditsir '''is also one of the few verbs that still has a commonly used synthetic past. Syntax Lexicon Example text Category:Languages Category:Romance conlangs Category:A posteriori Category:Languages